


see what it's like for day and night

by vapiddilettante



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Angst, Bakery and Coffee Shop, F/F, Fluff, Paris - Freeform, Restaurants, gays being corny, lesbian fluff, the restaurant bizniz baby!!!, very self indulgent, wlw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 11:00:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16240259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vapiddilettante/pseuds/vapiddilettante
Summary: angela and madeleine try and have it all.





	see what it's like for day and night

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this because I love bakeries and restaurants and lesbians and montreal and paris. leave kudos and comments if you like this!!!

Madeleine stretches her limbs in a starfish shape and releases a yawn. The clock on her nightstand flashes 6:45am. After a few years at the bakery, she’s earned enough seniority to get the 8 o’clock shift instead of the 4 or 6 o’clock one.

Getting out of bed, she gives her cat Jack a little rub on the head and carries him to the kitchen. He purrs and snuggles closer to her chest. She can’t help but smile at him, reminiscing about just how much she hated that cat when Angela brought him home. After flicking the kettle on, she retrieves a mug from the cupboard. It’s a tacky souvenir mug, the Honolulu coastline with Aloha in pink letters. She gathers the milk and a teabag.

For breakfast, she has oatmeal with peaches and almonds. It’s a cold day in Montreal, a fresh snow blanketing the streets. When Madeline used to wake up for work at three in the morning, hers were always the first set of footprints in the snow. It made walking difficult, but she loved the feeling of the snow crunching under her heavy boots.

After a quick shower, she throws on her black jeans and a green rugby sweater, with a t-shirt underneath. It’s well below freezing now, but the kitchen will get warm quickly. She puts out a dish of food for Jack, gives him on last rub on the head, and heads out the door.

***

Angela walked out of the bar and down the street. There was no tea or food at home, so she needed to stop somewhere. The grocery store didn’t open until eight, and the restaurants opened for lunch. The only storefront with the lights on was a bakery, one she had passed a thousand times.

Bakeries were never really her scene, but Angela was charmed the moment she entered. Photographs littered the wall, and second hand looking chandeliers hung from the ceiling.

“Rough night?” said a voice behind the counter. The voice belonged to a woman about her age, wearing a cream knit sweater and a lazy smile. Half of her dark curls were pinned back, and even ten feet away her eyes appeared sparkle.

The familiar butterflies of talking to a pretty girl woke up from their months long slumber and fluttered around Angela’s stomach.

“Long night. I bartend down the road. We were open late tonight for this bar hopping event. I’m in desperate need of a tea and pastry.”

With that, Pretty Girl stood up and headed to the kettle. “I’ve got you covered. English Breakfast okay?”

“Perfect. Milk and no sugar, please and thank you.” The girl prepared the tea, and Angela took the moment to look around a little more. Pretty Girl was in quite a few of the pictures. She wore a red sweater and Santa hat in some, lace dresses in others. “You’re open pretty early.”

“Not really. I come in at four to start all of the baking for the day. We’re not technically open until seven, but we usually leave the door unlocked and serve anybody who walks in. Hardly anyone ever does.”

“God, you must wake up so early.”

Pretty girl nodded but countered, “You must go to bed so late.”

“Touché. It’s a ton of fun though. Have you visited it? The Night Owl?”

She wasn’t lying about bartending being fun. Her boss once joked that she was like a barista of the night, and he wasn’t far off. A lot of the customers were regulars, some she’d known since her first year of university. Her co-workers always made her laugh, and the pay was good.

Truthfully, she was genuinely curious if Pretty Girl had been to the bar. Though Angela was sure she’d remember seeing her.

“No, but I’m in bed by eight most nights. Not really the partying type. Is this your first time here?”

“Yeah. I’m not really the drink coffee and watch the sunrise type.”

Her schedule doesn’t allow her to be that type. She falls asleep just before the sun rises, and goes to work after it’s set. Besides, she’s always preferred tea to coffee.

“Touché. You had your eye on a pastry?”

“Definitely. What would the chef recommend?”

“The croissants are fresh, but I think the scones pair better with tea. Although the only ones out of the oven now are the chocolate ones, and I think you need a plain one with jam and cream.”

“When do they come out?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll hang out.”

“Cool. If we’re hanging out, why don’t you tell me your name?”

“Angela,”

“Madeleine.”

The two chattered for fifteen minutes as the scones finish, and another fifteen as Angela eats hers. People always seem to act a little outside of themselves during the in-between hours of night and morning.

“Well, I should probably get going, Madeleine.” Angela said, picking up her tea. She didn’t really want to leave, but her eyes burned with fatigue.

“Yeah, you need some rest. Listen, I know we’re both probably a little out of it and maybe not ourselves at this god awful hour, but you should drop by again. Or I can come to the bar before my shift. I’d like to get to know you a little better.”

“That sounds perfect.”

And so it began.

***

Part of Madeleine still feels guilty walking into the bakery hours after the others arrived, but she reminds herself that there are certain liberties she can take now that she’s in charge. When Elaine retired, she asked Madeleine to fill her post of manager slash owner immediately. So now at age 23, two years out of culinary school, she owns a business and employs people forty years her senior.

She’s lucky. Her friends from college are payed offensively low wages and work absurd hours to pay their dues, while she takes home net profit and creates her own schedule. Magazines have published odes to her brilliance. The bakery’s amassed a social media following that come to the bakery in droves in search of her Instagram famous cinnamon buns. Executives have invited her to five star dinners to discuss representing the bakery and her future endeavours.

Madeleine is on top of the world, but as cliché would guarantee, she’s lonely.

“Hey, Madeleine,” Rosa, the sixty year old bread baker, says. “I have the most wonderful thing to tell you.”

Rosa has worked at the bakery far longer than Madeleine, but had no interest in resuming the manager role. Throughout the years, she’s counselled the entire staff through a litany of personal and professional problems.

“What is it?” Madeleine asks, bemused. Rosa has a flair for the dramatics.

“Yesterday, at around noon, Angela dropped by looking for you.”

“No, she couldn’t have. She always phones before she comes to Montreal. What did she say?”

“Not much, she just had this…air about her. Like she was distracted, not really paying attention to our conversation.”

“God only knows what she wants from me.”

A sinking feeling settles in Madeleine’s stomach as her mind skims the possibilities. Whenever they were in the same city, they always fooled around. Just sex would be one thing. but they can’t seem to see each other without breaking their hearts all over again.

“Maybe she just wanted to say hi,” Rosa offers optimistically.

***

Angela was watching Madeleine stir the pasta and bob her head along to the music spilling out of the speakers when the realization struck her.

After twelve weeks of dating, barely a fraction in the timeline of her life, she’d fallen in love with this odd pastry chef with a penchant for 2000’s culture and obscure eighties music. This wasn’t a fling, or even just an average relationship, this was her all consuming, paramount love.

It was a ludicrous thought, and Angela knew as much. Nevertheless, it was true. She’d spend the rest of her life in love with the woman in front of her, whether the got married or broke up tomorrow. There was no moving on.

“I love you.” she mustered. Madeleine shot her an inquisitive glance.

“We’ve been dating for three months…” is all she manages.

“So?”

“I love you too.”

***

The day drags on as Madeleine obsesses over her visitor. Bless Rosa’s heart, she listens as Madeleine monologues in circles about the rise, fall, and aftermath of Angela.

What could she want? Another three day fling, that leaves both girls a little emptier and more unsatisfied than before? Every time they saw each other, it became more and more obvious that she might never actually move on from the three years they spent together. She may never meet somebody else who makes her feel the way Angela did. Does.

So she resolved to drown herself in her work. Her ten year plan didn’t include marriage anymore, now she’d break glass ceilings and receive Michelin stars. She’d be so busy she’d never even think about her broken heart.

_Madeleine: I heard you dropped by_

After an hour of mulling over her word choice, Madeleine sends that off to Angela. It’s vague, if not a little passive.

_Angela: I wanna talk_

comes back not two minutes later. Another comes through:

_Angela: I meant that in the least cryptic way possible. We both have so much going on these days, I just want to catch up._

_Madeleine: let’s meet for dinner. Tonight at Baracco? Seven?_

_Angela: sounds perfect_

***

“Come on, babe, show me your muscles!” Angela giggled as Madeleine sighed dramatically, picking up the smallest and lightest box in sight.

“I don’t do manual labour. Why’d we have to pick the third floor of a walk-up? And move in July?” Madeleine pouted.

“Because that’s went our rent contracts expired, and this place is a two minute walk from the bakery and the bar, remember?” Angela smiled, kissing Maddie on the forehead. “We’ll order pizza when we’re finished, God knows your brother and Ella will insist. You have, like, three more trips.” and with that Angela walked out the door and into the truck to retrieve more boxes. The heavy ones.

Complain as she might, Madeleine couldn’t hide her smile. After eight months of dating, the girls had decided not to renew their existing leases and look for a place together.

That’s not to say it was easy. Andrew, Maddie’s brother, protested. The siblings had shared a two bedroom apartment for five years, since Madeleine moved from their parents’ home in rural Ontario to Montreal for culinary school. Growing up, they never got along particularly well. Andrew resented not having a brother, as Maddie resented not having a sister. In their teens, they bonded over their shared feeling of being a little too big for their small town. When Andrew moved out the day after high school graduation, Madeleine felt like he’d abandoned her. But for the last two years until her graduation, Andrew drove down as often as he could, and would even bring Madeleine out to Montreal. He would bring home whatever leftovers he had from the kitchen.

Suffice it to say he wasn’t quite ready to let his little sister go, but he came around within a month. He adored Angela. The two worked at the same restaurant, Ang on bar and Andrew in the kitchen. Ella, Angela’s roommate, had a similar reaction to Andrew. Angela met Ella at the first bar she ever worked at, where Ella was a waitress. The two teamed up to charm the bar patrons into leaving generous tips. Their work friendship began real friendship, which led them to getting an apartment.

The day they went furniture shopping for their place might have been the most fun day of Madeleine’s life. She had her reservations about moving in together like anybody: they hadn’t been dating relatively long, their schedules were so vastly contradicting, and they were so young, to name a few. In her heart, though, she knew this was the right decision. It was the start of the rest of their lives together.

Andrew and Ella left a few hours later, after sharing pizza and watching a movie huddled around a tiny laptop screen. It was only seven o clock, and both girls had booked the next few days off work, so they stayed up and decorated the place. They bickered about what should go in each cupboard, negotiated closet space, and folded towels and sheets. Boring, mundane stuff. Maddie still couldn’t wipe the smile off her face.

It was obvious, looking at their combined things in the apartment, how different they were. There wasn’t a single duplicate book or DVD on their shelves. Madeleine’s Pottery Barn furniture and Hudson’s Bay accents didn’t quite match Angela’s hand me downs and flea market finds. Hanging in the closet, their clothes just looked funny next to each other. Angela’s leather jacket and Maddie’s wool trench. As different as they were, they shared what was important.

***

Angela is having a meltdown. She packed three fancy outfits for her dinner with Madeleine, allowed herself plenty of choice, but with an hour before she needs to leave, none of them look quite right.

She’s paranoid. The entire day she’s been a nervous wreck, fidgeting so visibly Ella asked her what as wrong within minutes of seeing her. It made her feel guilty, that even though she hadn’t seen Ella in months, she couldn’t focus on her friend and spent more than half the lunch projectile word vomiting her anxieties about this dinner. Ella took it all in stride though, having had years to get used to Angela’s dramatics.

Her friend’s advice was the same as her mother’s: be honest with Madeleine, direct. Understand that she might not be immediately warm to the idea of moving halfway across the world for a girl who broke her heart three years ago. They cautioned her not to get her hopes up. And above all else, they reminded her of just how absurd her proposal to Madeleine was.

Angela’s maternal grandparents lived in Paris her entire life. Considering her mother never had much money, Angela never met them in person. But she bonded with them through the letters they wrote her about the restaurant they ran. She’d been endlessly intrigued by their stories, and asked for pictures and menus. They indulged her, happy to share their livelihood.

After saving up enough money at her part time high school job, Angela bought a ticket to Paris and spent a year and half working at her grandparents’ restaurant. She revolutionized their business, putting them online and drawing new customers though the exposure. They adjusted their will so that when they died, Angela would get the restaurant.

But she didn’t expect that to be for a long time. They were in good health, and had been young when they had Angela’s mother. Then, she got a phone call at work a month ago from her mom informing her that they’d been in a car accident and died.

Immediately, she though of Madeleine. And Andrew and Ella. How the four of them got along so well. They always joked about running a business together, and had they stayed a four piece Angela would’ve offered her grandparents’ business without hesitation.

They didn’t. And now Angela is unsure.

***

“Honey, I’m home!” Angela yelled from the front door.

“You’re home!” Madeleine greeted, “and you have…a black cat. Are you a witch?”

“Haha, very funny.” Angela deadpanned, passing the cat to her girlfriend.

“So, whose cat in this?” she asked, as he squirmed around in her hold. She could relate. Neither seemed very happy to be in the other’s company.

“Max from the bar’s. He’s moving into an apartment that doesn’t allow pets, so he needed a place for Jack here to stay, so I said I’d take him.”

“Babe, don’t think you think you should have asked me before you adopted a cat?”

“Well, it’s not forever! It’s only until Max finds a permanent home. He posted the ad today, so it could be by the end of the week. I know I should’ve asked you first, it was just so hard to say no when I saw the pictures. Look at him!” Angela monologued, genuinely distressed.

So Madeleine did, and Jack looked right back at her. Both were less than impressed. Maybe Maddie just wasn’t an animal person, but this cat seemed kind of awful.

“Can we keep him?” Angela begged, bottom lip in a pout.

“I mean, why not?” Madeleine said, although she could list at least reasons off the top of her head why not.

***

Madeleine is panicking. The tone of Angela’s texts was odd if not alarming. Rarely was she so vague unless something was seriously wrong.

What was wrong? Or more wrong? Nothing has felt right since she left three years ago, and that’s the pathetic truth.

A thought persisted in the back of Maddie’s head: maybe she wants to get back together. She told that voice to shut up, for love of all that’s holy, but it refused.

The possibility that they’d get back together strayed farther and farther with every day. For the first year after they split, every day was a chore. She felt like nothing would ever be alright again. But it is. Work is still work, as fulfilling as ever. Andrew still comes over for dinner three times a week. Jack still wants to be fed every two hours. Madeleine is still Madeleine.

She’s grown accustomed to this new, indistinct heartbreak. A distant ache, a heavy heart. If the thought of getting back together terrifies her, it’s only because she’s resigned herself to a life of nostalgia and wondering what could have been.

***

“This fucking cat costs so much to feed. Can’t we just give him, like, a can of tuna or something?” Madeleine said, comparing price tags on the grocery store shelf.

“I don’t know? Come on, Jack deserves to be spoiled. He’s in turmoil.” Angela laughed.

“Yeah, turmoil. Has Max found any potential owners yet?”

“Not anybody he likes. There’s one family, but they live three hours away, so Max could never visit.”

“Babe, it’s a cat. And he’s hardly visited since Jack moved in with us.”

“I know, I know. Just give him time.”

“Well, we’ve given him time. It’s been six weeks. I would’ve protested from the get go if I knew it would be this long.”

“What’s the big deal? You guys get along more or less.”

“I’ve never wanted pets. You know that. Why are you being aloof?”. Her voice started to get a little loud, matching her rising frustration levels.

“Okay, we’re not going to be one of those couples that fights in the grocery store.”

“I’m not trying to pick a fight.”

“I know.”

A few moments of silence pass. “This isn’t the right time to tell you, but there’s a bartending conference in Toronto next weekend, and Ella got us tickets. It’s the Friday to the Tuesday.”

“That sounds like a lot of fun.” Maddie adds, deadpan.

“Well don’t sound so excited, Madeleine.”

“Don’t get sarcastic with me. You were right, it wasn’t the right time to tell me, especially considering I’ll have to take care of that cat for five days when he’s tried to scratch me to death in my sleep four times.”

“Oh, babe, don’t be so dramatic.”

It wasn’t the right thing to say, but Angela honestly didn’t know what was. Things had been tense between them in spots for the last month and a half, and she knew they wouldn’t improve until Jack found a new home.

Maybe the weekend away would be good for them, a chance to get some space and clear their heads.

***

Angela is sitting at the table set for two, eyes glued to the restaurant door. Her hands are sweaty, heart is pounding, and there’s a sinking pit at the bottom of her stomach.

She arrived at the restaurant fifteen minutes early and has since downed two glasses of water, mostly to direct her energies on something. The waiter seems genuinely concerned at her obvious stress, and she can tell he’s chatting with the employees.

“Date?” he asks, filling her water glass again.

“Something like that,” Angela responds.

And then, like a scene out of a movie, Madeleine walks in. Her hair is wind blown, cheeks tinged red from the cold, and the aura of light and love radiates off her and nearly blinds Angela.

They lock eyes immediately.

“Hey, you.” Madeleine greets and sits down. They don’t hug, but they squeeze hands. Angela overanalyzes the firmness.

“Hey, back.”

***

The conference was a stupid amount of fun. Angela sampled nearly every alcoholic beverage known to man, and was more than a little buzzed. She found herself in a circle of Toronto based bar owners and employees, discussing the difference between the bar scene there and in Montreal.

“Here’s the thing, you want the experience, got to Montreal. They’re still doing it old school. They aren’t changing, because what they have works. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. But if you want to grow, if you want to innovate, you’ve got to come to Toronto. We’re cutting edge.” said one girl, who had a very out of place New York accent. Her name was Sarah. Or Sam. Or Sandy.

The whole groups nods along. “Wait, you’re all saying I’ll be stagnant in Montreal? I have no room to grow?” Angela asked.

“Well, that’s not strictly true. Of course you could become manager or owner or something. But here, there’s more…creative freedom. You’re not just making hundred year old drinks.” an older man, Michael, reassures.

The group dispersed eventually, and only Michael, Ella, and Angela remained. “You thinking of leaving Montreal?” Michael asks.

“No, not seriously. I only really considered the job prospects In Toronto tonight. I couldn’t move though, I’m all set up at home.”

“Well, yeah, but you’re still young. You don’t have to stay where you are forever.” Ella reassures her.

“I know that, but I couldn’t just leave The Owl. And how would I convince my girlfriend to move?”

“Listen, all I’m saying is that if you ever find yourself looking for work around here, call me. I’d be more than happy to have you at one of my bars.” Michael shrugs.

***

“You are a sight for sore eyes.” Madeleine says, lazy smile on her face. The restaurant is lit softly, and Angela is glowing around the edges, which isn’t unusual.

“You’re not so bad yourself.”

“Will you tell me what’s going on right now, or are we exchanging niceties first?”

“Let’s do the niceties.”

“Okay. The bakery is good. Andrew feels powerless at work and wants to overthrow the executive chef.”. A smile creeps its way on Angela’s face at that, “My mom is enjoying her golden years, and has taken up French. Jack sleeps at least twelve hours of the day.” “

And what about you?”

“Oh, I’m alright, sweetheart. I don’t know if you saw the article, but according to the Globe and Mail, I’m kind of a big deal.”

“Yes, I did read that article. Your mom posted it on Facebook at least seven times.” she pauses and looks down. “That’s…great, though. You must be really happy.”

“Yeah,” and even Maddie can hear the hesitation in her own voice.

“Listen, everything is going right for me, you know? I have nothing to complain about. It’s just, God, this is so stupid. I really shouldn’t be this candid with you.”

“Hey, come on, it’s me.” Angela punctuates her sentence with another squeeze of their hands.

“I don’t think I’ve totally gotten over you yet.”

***

Things at home were tense when Angela came back from the conference, and understandably so. Unintentionally, she’d started to imagine what her life would be like in Toronto. How far she could make it in the business with just a little push. She blamed Ella, really, for getting her that ticket. Michael, too, for planting the seed in her head.

Even though they weren’t their normal selves, it was still so nice to be home with Madeleine. When they first decided to be an exclusive couple, a teeny tiny part of Angela worried she’d find monogamy dull and boring, but the reality was quite the opposite. Every moment—even those passive aggressive, angry ones—were lovely.

Their schedules were never in line, but they seemed to worsen. Madeleine got stuck with a longer and earlier shift at the bakery and Angela started staying late for the extra pay. Half the time they both weren’t working, one of them was sleeping.

If she ever did move to Toronto, she couldn’t leave this behind. Certainly, it was hard, but the payoff was just too good to let go.

Eventually she worked up the nerve to ask Madeleine about moving. Not immediately, but in the hypothetical future. They were making dinner, on one of their more pleasant days, when she asked, “Do you think you would ever leave Montreal?”

Madeleine paused. “I don’t know. I love it so much. I think if I was going to leave, I would have to make a drastic change, you know? Like, move to the other side of the world. Somewhere far.”

“Well, what about, like, Toronto?” Angela suggested, as casually as she could muster.

“Not far enough. I mean a different continent or something. Why, though, babe? Would you?”

She took a big sip of wine and chose her response carefully. “Maybe. At the conference we were talking about the bar scenes in different cities in North America. It sounds like there would be a lot of room for growth in Toronto.”

Madeleine tensed, but feigned nonchalance. “So this is something you’re seriously considering?”

“Not seriously. I just don’t see myself staying here forever, or at least being happy about it.”

“Well, I don’t plan to stay here forever, but at least until I’m into my thirties. Now that I’ve gotten this promotion at the bakery, I really want to see it through. Do you think you can wait that long?”

“I have to be honest with you, I don’t know. That’s another seven years away, and by then I’ll be 34. Past my prime.”

A sense of recognition settled over Madeleine’s features. “That’s going to be a problem, won’t it?”

“I guess so.”

“I mean, I don’t want to lose you, but I don’t want to leave.”

“I don’t want to lose you, but I don’t want to stay.” She wished she was being melodramatic, that this was just an exaggerated attempt at catching her girlfriend’s attention. It wasn’t.

“So what’s the compromise? Because neither of us want to abandon our career, or let the other abandon theirs.”

“Right, so that would mean that I move and you stay.”

“And where would that put us?” “

We could always try long distance.” The words taste bitter in her mouth. How could she be away from Madeleine? Not close enough to hug and kiss and cuddle? Maybe it was elementary, but she always treasured the physical intimacy of their relationship.

“I can’t do long distance if we don’t even know when we’d be able to be in the same city again. Who knows what could happen to our careers? Where we could end up?”

“So that would mean we break up.”

“This is a lot to process on a Thursday evening,” she let out a sad laugh. “But, yeah I guess we would.”

“Well, it’s not like I’m moving, so. We don’t actually have to break up.”

“Honey, I can’t let you stay here if I know you feel stuck. If there’s something better out there for you, I want you to go after it, head first. I’m always going to want what’s best for you.”

“You’re what’s best for me.”

“Maybe, but it sounds like there might be something better, and you owe it to yourself to find out. I don’t want us to break up, I would stay with you for the rest of my life if I could. The universe just has funny ways of inserting itself so that we can’t get what we want.”. Tears spilled from Angela’s eyes, wiped dry by Maddie’s gentle hands. “Baby, you need to follow your dreams, as corny as it sounds. I’m not letting you get off the hook for this. I’ll get you a job and an apartment myself if I have to. Whatever it takes for you to be happy.”

In three weeks, Angela’s things were gone.

***

As soon as the words leave her mouth, Madeleine wants to take them back. Then, something magical happens. Angela’s eyes light up, her cheeks glow bright pink, and she looks down at her plate bashfully.

“Okay, I think I need to say my thing.” she says, taking both of Maddie’s hands in one of hers. “About six weeks ago, my grandparents died, which you know.” Maddie shakes her head yes, “I loved them so much, I got into the restaurant business because of that year I spent at theirs. What I never told you, because it always felt too serious, was that they left me the restaurant in their will.”

A look of confusion settles onto Madeleine’s face. “Okay,” she encourages carefully, not knowing where she’s going with this.

“So now I’m the owner of a restaurant in Paris, and I have to figure out what I want to do with it. Now excuse the complete topic change, but it’ll make sense soon: haven’t stopped loving you since we broke up. There was nothing wrong with us, it was just…bad timing. I fully believe that if there is such a thing as ‘the one’, you are mine. You don’t complete me, or any of that cheesy shit, but you compliment me so well. We’re like night and day, or the sun and moon. Good on their own, good together.”

“What does that have to do with your grandparents’ restaurant, honey?”

“This is far fetched, and everybody has told me I shouldn’t ask, but I need to. Will you come to Paris with me and run my grandparents’ restaurant? And can we ask Ella and Andrew to come with us?”

For a moment, all the air is knocked out of Madeleine’s lungs. It’s like the last years of her life, since she met Angela, have been leading up to this moment. Owning a restaurant or bakery of was always her dream, and yet something was still missing even with her beloved bakery. She’d come to terms with the fact that her dream is multi faceted: Madeleine didn’t want to just own a bakery, she wanted to have it all. To explore beyond Montreal, to broaden her horizons. And to do it with the woman she loves. And Andrew and Ella.

“Shut up, you’re kidding!” is all she can muster, tears filling her eyes.

“Just think about it, you don’t have to—”

“Yes! Of course I’ll come with you to Paris and of course we can bring our best friends! You realize that you just made my dreams come true? I get to have you back in my life, move to another country, and run a restaurant. You’re just, God, you’re like an angel.”

“Well, I don’t know about all that, but I’m glad you’re excited.”

The two eat their dinner as they bounce ideas for the restaurant off each other and scheme how they’ll ask Andrew and Ella. It’s the most fun Madeleine has had in a long, long time.

***

Andrew and Ella agree, because of course they do. When they arrive in Paris, Madeleine and Angela take the apartment upstairs of the restaurant and their friends share one a few blocks away.

Rejuvenating the restaurant was a collaborative effort. Andrew was completely in charge of creating the menu, and he interviewed and hired a team of sous chefs. Nobody can miss the smile he has on his face during service, as if he can’t believe his luck.

Ella can relate. She took the role of restaurant manager, and all of the waitstaff was hired by her. Under her watch, the place runs like a well oiled machine.

Angela and Madeleine are co-owners. Originally, Angela was going to maintain legal ownership even though they’d share the role, because of how complicated the legality of it was. Then their lawyer explained that they’d both be legal co-owners upon marriage, and it seemed like the answer to all their problems.

So they had a small ceremony at the city hall, with Andrew and Ella and the family that flew out. It was the best day of either of their lives.

They offer Madeleine’s finest pastries and baked goods at every meal, and Angela runs the bar.

And Jack, of course, saunters around the upstairs apartment as if he owns the place.


End file.
